


Behind the Blue

by mirroredsakura



Series: Armed Escort [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Demons, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Multi, implied multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-16 18:44:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4636152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirroredsakura/pseuds/mirroredsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercverse AU. Aeris was given an ultimatum: join the Turks or run. When she meets a merc with SOLDIER eyes, it doesn't ever occur to her that maybe all he wants is... her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man With Two Faces

**Author's Note:**

> Written many years ago for mercverse AU, the world-bunny of icedark_elf which included, among other things, Zack as a human with demon blood, Cloud as an immortal, Sephiroth as a mage adept, and Vincent and Chaos as demon twins. As mercenaries. Mercverse.
> 
> I rewrote Armed Escort last month after it'd been niggling at me for years. And since I did that, I couldn't help but really really want to keep on filling in those silly plotholes my teenage self though gee, it's totally okay to just leave in there. And Aeris sat up and informed me Zack is a wonderful person and all, but there was so much more. Lo and behold... there was!

There is not much out there hotter than a girl in slinky black leathers.

Aeris would know - she had to _wear_ them. And during those last few awful hours before the sun set and the dank heat of industrial under-Plate Midgar really started to dissipate, it was beyond mortal endurance to be outside while in them.

Even in the bar she’d finally taken refuge in, where the churning of ancient machinery freely advertised the liberal use of air conditioning, the press of too many people packed into a single room meant the old generator could barely keep up. If she’d had her materia - the bracer, not her mother’s - she might even have been tempted to self-medicate with a swift shot of an Ice1.

Instead she sat as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, toying with a glass of something strong and cheap that she had no intention of drinking, waiting for the day to die.

 _Not long now_ , her mother’s voice whispered at the back of her mind. It was quiet and encouraging, and Aeris knew Ifalna understood.

Not about the heat, necessarily, but that Aeris was dawdling, delaying the inevitable. She just… she didn’t want to leave.

For all that Midgar was filthy, crime-ridden, and at the mercy of self-absorbed royal oversight, it was home. But not even having a foster mother like Elmyra (strong, hard-headed, teeth like a dragon when roused) was enough to keep the Turks off her tail.

Attunements came and went in the city - while anyone could learn sooner or later how to harness a battery of different materia, Ifalna’s line had been known for an unshakable bond with the Planet… and the capacity to seek out the Promised Land. It was the sort of power royals hungered for, with very little idea how to harness.

Things had come to a head that morning when a stone-faced Tseng had appeared at Elmyra’s door with a sheaf of official-looking papers, stamped and signed by Shinra himself - requisitioning her as a free agent legally domiciled in his city.

Mercenaries weren’t exactly known for delicacy when it came to inducting new members, even ones they really wanted. For what they were, the Turks had been kind… had in fact done very well by her until now, playing a deeply-orchestrated cat-and-mouse game as they had juggled her wishes with those of Shinra.

Someone had forced their hand.

“What can I do?” she’d asked him, grasping at his hand.

Tseng’s face hadn’t changed - a solemn, almost cruel expression with a grim set to his jaw - but his eyes had been a different story.

“You can run,” he’d told her bluntly, his fingers curling around hers, “we return in the morning, in a more… official capacity. If you left the city tonight, it could be a long time until we found you. The army won’t mobilize outside the city limits just for you.”

She could be free... if she just kept running.

_Not… not fair._

A hard, hot little coal of anger lit inside of her. She felt her chest tighten, felt the hand hanging limply at her side ball into a fist… and then forcibly relax as that spark was snuffed out by an icy fist of despair and the raw wellspring of determination.

It wouldn't help to be angry. If she ignored it… then it was like it wasn’t there.

She didn’t cry. When she stiffened her spine and pinned him right in the eyes with her own, she was smiling again. If it was a little wooden around the edges, if her handshake was stiff and formal… she also knew Tseng understood - even approved - of her stiff upper lip.

“You would make a good ally,” he said at last, “if you chose to stay, it would be my pleasure to have you on my team.”

He didn’t say that she would make a good Turk - _that_ would be skirting too close to a lie.

Elmyra had roared a great deal... but she had done it as she'd blazed through the cooking, and had promptly started ransacking the house the minute she'd watched Aeris scrape the last bite off her plate.

Aeris hadn't had much of an appetite after that morning, but Elmyra was not going to let her baby girl skip a meal today of all days, not when... why, who knows when the next time Aeris would be able to sit down for a good home-cooked--...

Elmyra didn't cry either. But she channelled her impotent anger into a whirlwind of activity as she packed and repacked a bag small enough to carry but large enough to live out of. And while Aeris ached to see the hollow look in her mom's eyes and the tight set of her lips, Elmyra only leaned into her hug for the briefest of moments before she was the straight-backed martinet again.

Tseng had oh-so-carelessly left his motorcycle outside their door with keys still in the ignition. The first thing Elmyra did was bundle her foster daughter into an old set of motorcycle leathers and out of the house, so glad now that Aeris had gotten it into her head to start learning how to ride months ago…

“This isn’t goodbye yet,” she’d said, grasping her daughter’s hands as though they were a lifeline, her voice unwontedly gruff, “but you’ve got to get somewhere safe-- _safer_ \-- away from here.”

“But Tseng--”

“Tseng isn’t the only Turk who knows about you,” Elmyra insisted, implacable. “And he’s not the only one who’ll know about a deadline on your head. I want you in a different sector quick as possible, dear. Find someplace crowded, where you can’t disappear without a fuss. I’ll… I’ll meet you at the 7th Heaven at 10 o’clock _sharp_ with all your things. The bartender there is a good girl, she can take any messages you might--”

Elmyra’s voice had broken then, and her hands had clamped down hard enough to hurt, but Aeris didn’t care. “I love you, Mom.”

And even though Elmyra couldn’t hear Ifalna, Aeris could hear her mother whispering her own thanks to this woman who had taken her daughter in, who had taken care of her when no one else would.

xx

Swirling her glass so that the ice clinked, Aeris’s thoughts were anything but idle as she pieced together the bare rudiments of a plan. With the bike she could get through the narrow streets of lower-Plate Midgar easily enough - and fast, which was even more important. She could get out of the city that way too, and on a good road, she could make it to Kalm before they set Midgar’s various merc companies on her trail.

From there… there was an old chocobo farm off to the east, she was certain she could make it out there and hopefully swap the bike for a good bird. That would make it easier to disappear off the roads for a while--

She bit her lip to keep it from trembling as she felt the tears gather. She wouldn’t be scared. So there were monsters. She had a staff for a _reason_ and she could fight if she needed to.

“Hey-- think I could get you something better?”

Her head came up with a jerk - she’d been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t seen the boy approach.

She’d seen him when he came in. Of course she had. It wasn’t just the cocky way he walked - there was an entire city’s worth of men who swaggered more than this man. It was the eyes… SOLDIER eyes weren’t common, especially now that the old legions had been almost completely obliterated. And he’d been so… well. He’d had such a nice smile.

If you were okay with teeth like a dragon’s. Not as pointy as Elmyra’s when she really fanned the fire, but _sharp_.

And he was turning the full 50 gigawatts of those pearly whites on her as he leaned his weight over her table. He had lashes like a girl and he knew how to use them, his eyes half-lidded and lazy as he gestured at her glass. “You don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself much… and you know, not everyone knows their way around a good Belhemel tequila like I do.”

SOLDIER eyes… hair wilder than Reno’s though not nearly as long… He wore his suit like Reno too, as though ties were a suggestion, not a rule.

\--If this guy was some no-name middle management schlub, she’d eat her hat. Elmyra was right, she couldn’t trust the Turks just because she did their leader.

She popped to her feet, and sped straight for the ladies room in the back. The windows in there were grimy, but they were unlocked and they were large enough to climb out of in a pinch. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to take to the rooftops, and at least the leather would hold up better than one of her dresses.

Aeris glanced back once to see whether or not the brush-off would do the trick. Sometimes the Turks were polite. And there was always the possibility that the ex-SOLDIER didn’t know her, really _had_ just been trying to be friendly.

\--No such luck it seemed. He was watching her with those unsettlingly blue eyes. And he was coming after her.

She whirled around and pushed through the swinging door of the ladies room, her mouth set. It looked like she’d be fighting after all.

Well. Her staff leaning against Tseng’s bike outside hadn’t been her only weapon.

xx

“Listen, maybe we got off on the wrong foot--”

She grabbed him and _yanked_ , pulling him through the door and past her, tossing him into the opposite wall.

Aeris could get scrappy with the best of them in the slums, but she was not a born fighter, and she had never seen the way a man like this could _move_. He coiled like a cat, twisting in the air and skidding to a stop on his feet, bracing himself with a fist against the wall. She closed in with the straps of her bag twisted in her fist, whipping it into the back of his head with a dull _thump_.

It was like he barely felt it - he just ducked with the blow, hooked an arm around her waist and heaved her to the floor. That, at least, she was ready for - she was used to being the smaller one, the lighter one, even if none of the other boys had ever been this _fast_. She used that, used her weight and her momentum to pull him off-balance with her - but maybe he was already intending on it because he never really lost his footing, and he fell like he was made of springs.

She only succeeded in getting stuck in a terrifying tangle of bodies as they rolled together in the tiny confines - he was _heavy_ , all lean, hard muscle… he could pick her up and snap her in two if he really wanted.

Then his arm closed tight around her neck, and she heard his frustrated grunt, felt his hot breath against the back of her neck - and then she remembered the _teeth_.

He couldn’t make her cry, but she _screamed_ , hoping against hope that someone out there would hear her and come running.

\--No one came of course, the cowards. The entire city knew a merc when they saw one, and no one was getting involved even if he ate her and came out wearing her ribcage for a hat.

That little coal of anger that had been glowing inside her all day reared, flared up into a glowing ball of heat that electrified her enough to struggle, all pointy elbows and teeth. It was futile, useless stuff, and she knew it as the tears burned in her eyes, but he was not taking her anywhere without her fighting it every inch of the _way_ \--...?

His hands fell away from her. His entire body simply collapsed, half slumped over her, and she screamed again, struggling hard to scrabble out from under his dead weight. Her hands closed around her purse, icy fingers frantic as she dug her hand in and yanked out the gun.

The anger was back, fire-hot and burning like a physical pain behind her eyes. She should have just taken her chances and shot him the minute he tried to follow her into the bathroom. She shouldn’t have tried to just fight him off, or slip away, she should have just--

_Aeris!_

She froze as though she’d been hit with a Stop spell. Her mother’s voice had been with her for years, and while it wasn’t always there, and while it didn’t always approve, she had never heard or felt such shocked chagrin.

_Look, girl. Look with more than just your eyes._

Slowly she lowered the gun barrel and did as she was told… she looked down at the man properly for the first time. His eyes were open and he was certainly breathing, but he was just... lying there like a large sack of bricks.

What had she...? That couldn't have been _her_ doing could it? She simply didn't have that kind of power.

Cautiously she crouched down next to him, gripped his shoulder and with some awkward juggling, managed to roll him on his back. His mouth flopped open almost comically, and though his eyes followed her, the pupils were dilated and he looked… drunk?

She never let go of the gun, but she did leave the safety on as she crept forward. She straddled his waist, her legs hugging his arms under her so that if he moved, she would have ample warning.

Aeris had always been leery of her own powers… the fuzzy flashes of empathy that she’d inherited from Ifalna had never sat well with Aeris because they often told her too much and yet too little.

But she had… she’d been scared and angry, and-- that wasn’t really the best excuse. Not when she’d nearly hurt this man, irrevocably even. She should… she needed to be sure.

She leaned down, her face hovering inches away from his, touched the very tip of her finger to his forehead, and reached for that space inside her, that _other_ that she kept hidden so deep. It wasn’t painful - it was quite like relaxing a fist or letting out a breath you’d held onto for just a touch too long.

As easy as breathing, she was inside a room: a dark-walled room with plain wood flooring and lit with a hundred windows. She shaded her eyes as she peeked through one, and saw a little boy on all fours, roaring at a materia-green lizard. Tiny, needle-like teeth glittered in his wide-open mouth as the lizard stared right back at him, utterly unperturbed. A woman in the background watched him with a tight, uncomfortable smile.

In another she saw the SOLDIER fight, really fight, the oily water of the fens churning underfoot as his entire body was haloed in a nimbus of blue-white light, the sheer force of his attacks gouging deep furrows in the earth.

He was fighting snakes, she realized. Zoloms like the ones not too far from the farm she’d intended to find. There were other shapes around him in this one, lightning-fast bodies blued with Haste that flashed through the greenish-yellow coils, and brought a fierce smile to his lips.

One more and she saw him throwing his head back and laughing, knocking back beers and fist-bumping an all-too-familiar redhead. She’d know hair like Reno’s _anywhere_.

So… she’d been right, hadn’t she? The realization was like a stone in the pit of her stomach. 

“You know, that’s called _snooping…_ ”

The words were a drawl, nearly startling her out of her skin. She whirled to face… nothing?

No, no there _was_ someone there. There, next to another window, shining with sunlight, so that he was nearly hidden in the contrast but for his eyes.

“How did you know--?”

She was rewarded with a snort. “Cetra. You’re all the same. The power to crush mountains and you use it to _love~_ ”

The figure stepped forward and… he was no clearer now than he’d been. He had the SOLDIER’s mass of wild hair, the same lean, muscled grace… but he was coal black, not black like skin was, but _black_ , from head to toe, as though he were spun of night and shadow.

Except for his eyes: bright as sapphires, and filled with a wary curiosity.

“That wasn’t what I was trying to--”

“No,” he agreed, his lips curling in a smile - his jaw was exaggeratedly large compared to a human’s, all the better to cram in all those teeth, as pointy as his hair and twice as shiny. “You just wanted to be _sure._ I'd have killed you otherwise, you know. I don’t _like_ when others mess with me and mine.”

She didn’t cower against a wall, but there was a deep flutter of fear beating hard inside her chest.

The figure cocked his head, birdlike, in slit-eyed contemplation. He approached like a stalking cat, careful footsteps soundless, nostrils flaring as he sniffed. She realized he had a tail, whip-thin with a wedged tip that flick-flicked in the air behind him.

“You smell good enough to eat,” he informed her, that rictus grin widening, “fear and unfiltered power. _Yummy_.”

Somewhere out there, she heard the SOLDIER’s voice - a nice voice, earnest and well-meaning. _You know I wasn’t going to hurt you, right?_

He looked up like he was listening too, and he rolled those beautiful blue eyes. “You see what I have to deal with. He tries so hard to be _nice_.”

But the SOLDIER’s voice had given her a lifeline out, a shining strand that led back to her own body, back into her right mind. She groped for it, felt it coil around her wrist and yank her up, out--

“Now that’s just _rude_ …”

She was back in her own body, right where she’d been, swaying over the SOLDIER’s handsome, bewildered face. And yet… no she wasn’t, she had a hard band of iron wrapped around her other wrist and she…

She was still there in that room with the windows, that dark face right in hers, holding onto her arm, hard. He blew a plume of faint green smoke at her with a grin. “You should watch where you bestow your gifts, little girl,” he told her conversationally, as though wicked talons weren’t just a hair’s breadth from her skin. “you never know what kind of evil hellbeast will just up and _accept_ all that Lifestream you have to give.”

He nuzzled into her neck, snuffling deeply as he breathed her in. Outside she peered down into the SOLDIER’s eyes, sifting through the materia blue to see if sapphire lurked underneath.

“What are you?” she whispered.

The bright eyes laughed at her. “Haven’t you guessed yet?”

It was the oddest, most confusing sensation in the world to be two places at once… and yet, Aeris had always known something like this hadn’t she? She’d had so much trouble staying firmly planted in the here and the now - this was only one step further in the other direction.

She also got the sense, past her pounding heart, that he… whatever he was… wasn’t so much _evil_ as… different. Dangerous.

She reached up slowly so as not to startle, and gently touched her fingers to his face. That empathy flared up between them - not as a room with windows anymore, but fuzzy glimpses into this strange, inhuman mind.

She saw a cage of blood and bone that this dark figure stalked in tiny, cramped circles. She saw his boredom, his ennui, but also a keen intelligence that kept the berserk rage at bay. She felt more than saw the presence of others, of home and safety and _pack_ , after too many years alone. She felt that hot, jealous love that tied him up, and the firm hand that kept him tame--

She was thrown out of her reverie by a sharp pain - he’d wrapped that lithe body around her, torn open the seams of her sleeve, and closed his needle-like teeth into her shoulder. He released her immediately, his tongue swiping greedily at his own teeth and she realized he hadn’t bit deep, but fat drops of blood were welling up and starting to run down.

"Ah ah ah," he tsked, those blue eyes wintry beneath the teasing voice, "some things aren't meant for _you_."

But he was distracted, his eyes locked on the tiny red rivers flowing down her arm. As she looked down on the outside, she knew that even though her clothes went untouched, if she peeled the leathers off she'd find a ring of teeth marks to match.

She wondered if she was bleeding out there too, and whether the SOLDIER could smell the sharp scent of copper like she could.

As if to forcibly distract her back into that room of many windows, an incredibly, inhumanly long tongue slipped out from between those dark lips - a dark fleshy pink that stood out sharply against the black cavern of his mouth - and lapped languorously at her skin until she was clean.

A sharp shudder ran like visible prickles along his skin, and she could barely see the flutter of inky lashes as his throat _thrummed_ in a deep bass purr.

“What am I ever going to do with you,” he murmured, his voice low and rough and musing, “when you taste so _good?_ ”

Aeris blinked, pulling away from him completely for the first time. He let her, and though his heavy-lidded eyes never left her, he simply stood there, his tail flicking like a metronome from side to side, waiting to see what she would do.

It was odd. She could still feel the small pulsing pain of his teeth where he'd hurt her... but she was strangely less frightened than she’d been before.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

He cocked his head again. "Is that a request?"

"A question."

He cocked his head in the other direction. "If you like it.” His grin stretched, “If you _deserve_ it."

He said it like a threat, but Aeris didn’t need to be touching him to understand there was a promise of safety in there too. This wasn’t a _beast_ she was dealing with.

Still… people lied.

“Why did you keep me here?”

He grinned, flashing all his teeth at once, sidling around her with a grace that was more balletic than large stalking cat. “To see if I could, naturally.”

That tasted like truth. But… “Is that all?”

He paused in his circling, those beautiful eyes thoughtful, “I suppose it’s nice to be seen.”

That felt much closer to the truth. When she reached out to touch him again, he didn’t push her away. No visions this time - as she cupped his face with her hand, she simply got the sense of realization that they were in a room with many windows… but no doors.

No way out, not for him.

Aeris the child had been a chatterbug. Aeris the teenager had been headstrong bordering on reckless. Aeris the adult was a little wiser, a little more patient, a little more graceful at accepting what her life threw at her. But she had never been alone.

More than other children, her head filled with the voices of the dead, she had never really known real solitude. Did the SOLDIER know his inner demon was awake and aware and so patiently alone?

Demon?

...That’s what he was, wasn’t he?

“You’re crying.” There was dry curiosity in the demon’s voice as he leaned in close to peer at her, his tongue snaking out to lap at the single drop that had managed to slide down her cheek. “Why are you crying?”

He sounded so distant, so downright _bored_.

So. Demons lied too.

“Because you can’t, can you?” She reached up, carding her fingers through his inky black hair. The wild array of spikes felt strangely solid, as if they weren’t actually made of of individual hairs, but they were soft to the touch all the same. They rippled beneath her fingers, as though shivering at her touch.

He was standing so still, so upright and controlled. Only his tail… it lashed against her leg, then finding purchase, wrapped around it like a clinging vine. She could feel the tension.

Aeris kissed him. She navigated carefully away from the razor edges of his teeth, found his shockingly soft lips. And outside she was suddenly supremely aware that the SOLDIER had reared up and kissed her back - as hard, and hot, and _wanting_ , as this demon’s face was so guarded and still.

As if he could truly ignore the electricity that crackled between them at a touch, or the way her power rose up in her like a cresting wave and collided with the blue-white flare of his. Desire rose in her at the kiss of his power, a heat that lit a fire deep in her belly.

He shuddered against her and then yanked himself away with a snarl. For the second time that day, she found herself flung onto the floor, skidding this time on the waxed wood, with a man - the same man, really - pounced on top of her, pinning her down.

The straining features and the bright flare of anger was terrifying - and yet… it was almost a relief after so much false calm.

"Did you think I was in need of your _pity_ , little Ancient?” He lifted one of his hands to her face, the dark claws shining in the light. “You would taste just as good without those pretty eyes.”

Her pulse jumped, but it wasn’t just fear. The SOLDIER’s kiss was a burn on her lips, a heat she couldn’t ignore as she felt her mouth slip open and his tongue slide inside. Her breath came out in a gasp - and it wasn’t from pain.

With an inarticulate shout, the demon tore away from her - a dark blur in her vision, he ended crouched like an animal at her feet. All she could properly see of him were those wide, suspicious eyes, torn between anger and desire.

It wasn’t easy to tamp down the sheer _want_ that flooded her as she watched the materia glow of the SOLDIER’s eyes bleed into witchlight, swallowing the pupils… but when she spoke to the demon, her voice was gentle. “You shouldn’t mistake compassion for pity, you know?” she told him, sitting up carefully and holding out a hand to him.

He didn’t say a word, but she noticed when his tail stopped whipping around quite so violently.

Aeris was a creature of intuition - the voices were not always coherent enough to be guided by - and she knew somehow that she had bitten into his pride. And that wasn’t right… she needed him to _understand._

“And… you shouldn’t mistake desire for a trap, either.”

He stopped and cocked his head. Even though she couldn’t see it, she _felt_ his eyebrows rise. Leaning forward only slightly, she saw the wicked glint of his smile curl upwards.

“Is... that... right?”

Her face colored sharply, but she didn’t take anything back.

\--And then if she’d thought she was red before, it was nothing compared to the distinct blotch of tomato that heated her face when he took a deep, assessing sniff of her… of her…

“H-hey!”

This wasn’t fair. There were… there were the _both_ of them, and it was so hard to concentrate on any one thing. The demon’s tail had slowed down to a mesmerizing flick-swish- _flick_ as he watched her squirm, and she didn’t have to be fully in her own body to know that the SOLDIER’s kiss was making her stomach do flip-flops in appreciation.

A deep, almost reluctant chuckle drew her attention back to the demon as he rubbed the side of his cheek against the inside of her knee - as if he could feel her skin through the leather. “You make me feel young,” he told her with a wry twist of his lip. “The power to crush mountains…” he shook his head.

“What better use for it?” she asked softly, and for the first time, her sense of humor leapt to the fore. The smile she shot him at her own little joke was cheeky and fiendishly wide.

Elmyra had once given her a lecture on the dangers of flirting, but Aeris had to admit the gravity of her foster mother's concern had never weighed as heavily on her shoulders as it probably should have. And while this was probably exactly the kind of trouble - if perhaps not the exact circumstance - Elmyra had been so concerned about her getting into, Aeris got the distinct impression that if anyone was driving the bus, it was her. And that wasn’t the worst feeling.

The demon shook his head, the dark spikes flying in a way that real hair didn’t. She hadn’t managed to bait him into laughing outright, but she could detect a smile in his voice if she listened hard enough. “And to think all we wanted to do was buy you a drink.”

Wait. Didn’t he… didn’t he know?

\--Then the SOLDIER cracked his head against the floor and she heard the distinct sound of a tile splinter beneath it.

That jerked Aeris back into her body faster than anything - and this time the demon let her, equally concerned about his other half’s idiotic sense of self-preservation. She swayed above him, the demon’s muttered curses (none of which, thankfully, were directed at her) still sounding in her ears.

 _\--Complicated--_ was all the voices of the dead had to say about him. Her mother, thankfully, was noticeably missing from the cacophony. That would have been… too odd, even for Aeris to handle.

She flexed her fingers, feeling the intoxicating rightness of being back in her own self, in actually _feeling_ , not just aware of everything that happened to her - the heavy weight of the gun in her hand, the fluttering beat of her own heart… and the sharp scent of blood.

Was it his or hers?

The SOLDIER’s eyes were still glowing - so blue they drowned the pupils and nearly got lost in the whites - and they cast strange shadows on the walls, on her skin. She wondered what she must look like... his eyes were fixated on hers in rapt fascination.

And he had… the nicest smile. A little shy, a little rueful, and there was still that wrinkle of worry between his brows because-- well, she was still holding a gun to him.

Her anger though - that unending pit of frustration and disappointment and fear that she’d been wrestling with since that morning… had in fact known in no small amount all her life…

That was… gone?

_And it was delicious, I hasten to add._

The demon’s voice was there, low and teasing again. She might have escaped the room, but once heard, she couldn’t close him off quite so easily. He’d… eaten it? But that was…

_Demonic?_

Cheating. She had never felt so _light._

_I could always give it back, I suppose._

But she didn’t want it back. It had made her stupid - and while she was naturally impulsive, there was a far cry between kissing other people’s demons, and picking fights with a SOLDIER just because she didn’t want to leave home.

_Such a compelling reason to keep me, indeed._

His voice was the driest, most blasé thing she had ever heard. And oh, she wanted to wrap her arms around that solemn, poised thing and squish him in the biggest, cuddliest hug she could muster.

Because sometimes the lie wasn't in the _words_.

“ _What are you?_ ” the SOLDIER’s voice was a whisper, and his face was still open, honest… full of an almost childlike wonder. Why?

 _You have the eyes of goddess,_ the demon replied for him, faint surprise wrinkling the unconcerned tones of his voice. _...Of deity. I would venture to say it seems you aren’t just… any Ancient._

No… she was the last. The last of all of them. But that didn’t change anything… first or last, she just didn’t have that kind of power.

 _So young… Power_ sleeps, _you know. It takes age and impetus to waken it. What such conflict have you known in your short life?_

She looked down, flexing the pads of her fingers against all that taut skin, that hard muscle. He made a soft sound at her touch, his breath hitching as he tried, visibly, to be very, very good. Impetus… Was it him-- them?

 _That would be all too convenient for your sensibilities, wouldn’t it?_ the demon replied dryly, a dark bubble of laughter hovering behind the solemnity. _Behold the sting that is humanity. It must be so hard to be ~good~_

That made her smile back at the SOLDIER for the first time, her smile small and hesitant, but there.

It _was_ very human, wasn’t it? To hide behind an excuse when she simply… wanted. And while she wasn’t _goddess_ , Aeris was not a _coward_.

With her free hand, she reached for his. It was large and callused and he had the wide wrists of a swordsman. She knew she was blushing again, but embarrassment had never been a deterrent to her for long - she tugged his hand up to the ring at her neck, an open invitation… if he wanted it.

There was another puff of laughter in her head. _Oh, we’ve wanted._ And this time he did nothing to hide the heat, his laughter so low, so _male_.


	2. The Girl Who Gave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's no fair when there's two of them and only one of her...

The SOLDIER didn’t yank, but there was eagerness in his eyes as he slid it down - and she felt the soft slide of his fingers against her skin. Gentle, so gentle - the same kind of hard-earned control the demon had, but without claws. She leaned in to kiss him, kiss him _properly_ , firmly inside her own skin.

She realized two things almost at once: that he was still hurting, a dull pulse of pain at the back of his head which wasn’t bad but could hardly been good… and that she knew how to _fix_ it, even without materia.

It came like a rush of wind and water - a gift from the Planet, almost more than she knew what to do with. But the SOLDIER did - he and his demon drank it down with a groan, bathing in the cool wash of it. She pulled away to see, and she caught sight of the dying haze of green around him, the effects of a Cure done and done well.

He had a goofy, dazed-looking smile on his face again, like she'd just hit him in the face with a really big hammer and a shot of Confuse. So maybe it was okay too if he didn't want to... to _do_ anything...

_You underestimate me._

And she couldn’t tell if the demon was answering as himself or as the both of them together because all at once all she knew was heat - a raw surge of rolling desire that blossomed from her lips and radiated through her entire body.

Her breath left her in a gasp as their mouths crashed together a second time: her tongue scraping against his teeth, his snarl as he suckled her lip; her hand frantic, his eager as they tore her suit open and closed around her breasts.

She had to admit it was terribly naughty of her to keep on holding the gun at his head - it wasn't a _toy_ and she shouldn’t be treating it like one - but she had lived for too long on the knife edge balancing between an impulsive nature and a nurtured caution. She couldn’t give in even now without keeping _something_ , especially now when she… vulnerable.

Aeris had to admit the sweet, hopeful flick of his eyes up to hers as she stepped out of her boots and he helped her strip out of her leathers made great strides in helping to convince her. That fuzzy sense of _knowing_ was back: it was a direct loop feed of sheer _want_ that made her knees weak, but very little calculation, and very little fear.

She stepped out of the soft lace of her panties herself, and the look of his face - a wide happy grin of a smile with equal parts admiration and eagerness - was the only thing that kept the embarrassment at bay.

Then his hands were sliding up her legs and his face was almost worshipful as with infinite gentleness - he had to, it was those _teeth_ \- he kissed, and nibbled, and oh, _licked_ …

She hardly recognized herself in this incoherent, shuddering, mewling mess of herself that he reduced her to with his tongue, but he wasn’t complaining and oh she wasn’t _apologizing_ …

Then he drove his fingers up inside her and her knees buckled-- the harsh, eager growl of his demon as loud as an engine in her ears.

_Oh you delicious little thing..._

She cried out when she felt hands close around her breasts again, claw tips scraping gently along her skin. There was nothing there when she looked down, nothing but her own hand holding the back of that spiky black head as if for dear life down between her legs, urging him closer, harder--

But she could feel the phantom fingers sliding against her skin, pinching her nipples between the knuckles, and then a tongue, circling, lapping… she could feel those hands squeezing, lips sucking…

And all the while, all that terrible iron strength of his - of _theirs_ \- reined and checked just for her. At one point it was just his hand braced at the small of her back that kept her from toppling into a quivering heap on the floor... and he held her up as easily as if she were a doll.

Aeris found that she was glad, very glad, that the door opened inwards because when she came, she crashed into it a bucking, shuddering, and very loud mess.

When she could open her eyes again she snuck a peek to check whether or not he was laughing at her - but his eyes were lazy and heavy-lidded and hungry as he sucked on his fingers and smiled at her.

"Damn babe, I cannot fucking _blame_ the Turks for wanting you so bad."

Huh? He... wasn't...?

_So much for snooping, little Cetra._ There was a fiendishly wicked laugh in the demon's voice, although she felt the faint brush of his skin against her face and a quick brush of unnaturally soft lips, gone in seconds.

But... oh he was _evil!_

His laughter nearly overshadowed her confused conversation with the SOLDIER. The SOLDIER who was one of the kindest, most thoughtful men she'd ever known... and who had a name at last.

Her heart skipped a beat when unbidden, he took her hand in his and pressed a kiss into her skin.

"My name's Zack. I'm in Cloud's pack."

Zack. And the demon's?

_We are one and the same, little one. I have no need for autonomy, and flesh is only a prison if you let it become one._

That wry, drawing voice was thoughtful though - even without seeing, she could tell he was turning the thought over in his mind, so new the idea of finding someone who could see him as other.

_...If you must name me, you could do worse than call me Zax._

The same but different all at once. She smiled brilliantly. It was like their little secret.

Still… there was something else niggling at her mind, a faint memory that made _Cloud's pack_ so significant.

_\--Jenova--_  
\--power--  
 **\--Sephiroth--**

The voices were like a lightning bolt of inspiration though she had never heard the dead so full of a nameless fear. Sephiroth. Of course! How old had she been when Midgar had been rocked with the story of Shinra’s great military genius breaking away so spectacularly from the fold?

They said there was still a great charred hole in the heart of the castle like the site of a meteorite where he had come into his power and the royals had foolishly tried to hold him back. With the fires of a demon queen, he had driven them back and then… disappeared.

It hadn’t been so long ago when the city had been stunned by his reappearance - not, as it had been first thought, to storm the castle and take it as his own, but rather as the stately second of a mercenary with eyes older than heaven.

The royals had let the situation completely alone - they might have the army, but not a one was willing to fight this man that had been their master.

Perhaps… perhaps they would take her. There were unwritten rules when it came to the various mercenary branches that based out of Midgar - and it was here in which Aeris’s staunch adherence to self-secrecy had come as a disadvantage. She had no ties to any of the other companies - fair game, as a free agent, for Turk attention - and no one wanted to take chances on a non-entity if it meant standing up to the Turks.

She probably wouldn’t make a very good mercenary but…

As lightly as she knew how, she brought it up to him: “Maybe I just want to hire you.”

It would not be nearly as effective but… it could work. If she could afford them, it would mean… it could mean she wouldn’t have to keep running.

_They’ll want you._ Zax’s voice was no longer coy, it was as serious as she’d ever heard it - and for the first time, infinitely gentle. _You have the power to bring even Sephiroth down at heel if you wished it, and your power is like a kiss. They will want you. Particularly if the alternative is handing you to Shinra._

But if she couldn’t _demonstrate--_

_In a roomful of the top mercs in the city, you glow like a pearl in the palm. Foolish girl, do you think that all eyes are so blind?_

It was another weight lifted from her shoulders, and while she felt Zax knew how to lie better than Zack did… she believed him. There were such strong ties to _home_ and _pack_ wrapped up in his words, and the possibility that she could be a part of that…

_No fear_ , she told herself, a smile finding its way back to her lips. Wasn’t that the best lesson to learn? Don’t be afraid to want.

When she leaned in to kiss Zack again, she did it with her eyes open.

He pulled her into his lap with the easy grace of a dancer, and it felt _so good_ to be able to hold him close, to wrap her arms around him, touch him, kiss him as if they were… as if they were a…

\--Well. It was enough to worry about second-guessing her own feelings without venturing forth into sorting out his.

Especially since affection came so naturally to him - that silly smile that made her heart do flip-flops when she nuzzled him his nose, the warmth of his hands cradling her back, the murmur of his voice in her hair as he rubbed his cheek against it like a large, lazy cat.

Only the prickle of his eagerness siphoning into her consciousness and the tented hardness in his pants pressed up against her inner thighs told her yes, he still wanted her, and yes, he was still being so very, very good.

As she lay kisses down the clean lines of his jaw, it was a wicked little spark of inspiration that made her glance up at those deceptively drowsy-looking materia blues, open her mouth wide, and bite down firmly into the meat of his neck.

It was like she’d slapped him with a Bolt spell because his entire body jerked underneath her, freezing to a standstill for a split-second.

\--Then a fine shuddering began in every single tightly-coiled muscle in his body. His hands clamped down on her hips, hard, his knuckles whitening under the strain of holding himself back. As she watched, fascinated, his eyes went nearly coal-black; the enormous dark blots of his dilated pupils burned with a thin ring of icy blue fire.

The demon’s cry had gone from a high yowl of surprise into a deep bass growl in a register she hadn’t even known he possessed while Zack’s hoarse shout was entirely human… but his eyes, oh when he looked down at her with that wild eagerness, it was all _other_.

“Demon?” she asked him with a smile, so that he _knew_ … and to reassure him most of all that that was okay. She swayed closer as her hips rocked against his, grinding herself against that hard, twitching piece of him. That it was more than okay.

“Demon,” he agreed, breathless and eager, his voice rough with the tension of holding himself back.

“How much demon?”

“Enough.” And his voice had dropped into that same thrumming bass growl of Zax’s.

That clinched it. It wasn’t just a demon housed inside a human, they really were a sharply-mixed blend of both… just not all the way through.

“I like it. I like _you_."

_Both of you_ , she thought with an internal smile, and she knew Zax heard.

Then because she'd waited long enough - and he'd waited longer - she fisted her hands in his horribly creased shirt and ripped it open.

A button or two pinged into her but she didn't care - she was much more absorbed with the sight of his chest... which was so chiseled it belonged in a magazine spread or a museum, not between her legs.

A ragged scar ran down the side of his belly in triplicate, like some great animal had tried to claw out his kidney, though it was already pink and fading. On his hip there was a tattoo in black lines of a snarling Fenris wolf.

\--And that was all she got because with a snarl of impatience, he did the rest of her work for her, grabbing his shirt himself and tearing it off. It sheared to pieces in his hands, and hung in shreds off his arms.

Undaunted, one hand came up behind her head, the other at her back and he scooped her up and lay her flat against the floor in one swift, swooping motion. At the same time, he did something with his hips and his legs that had him twisting his body over her like a snake.

Aeris couldn't help but be glad that there was still his jacket and her leathers between her and the floor because it was still... well, they were where they were and it didn’t bear too much thinking about.

\--And then that seemed like such a… a minor thing, really, because he was hovering over her, kissing her, grinding into her with a bright, hot grin that told that he… quite liked her too. She felt her heart skip another beat.

When he knelt back to undo his belt, she caught him by the back of his neck because she had to make one thing clear here: “I just want you to know… the buttons I could have fixed.”

Her smile was playful and downright wicked, but it didn’t change the truth - she was impatient but she wasn’t _rude!_

Zack couldn’t read minds - or… at least, she didn’t think he could - but when he laughed, it felt like he understood the joke and her priorities too.

“Some casualties,” he assured her, flicking the very tip of his belt against her lip with a smile - a smile that stretched into a wide, toothy grin when she playfully growled at him and closed her teeth on it, “are a _pleasure_.”

When he wheeled back and snapped it away with a silly flourish, the buckle clunked hard against the dispenser next to the sink… and a little square packet fell out right near her hand. It was a clarifying moment. Not that she… needed it, exactly but…

_At least one force in this universe is thinking clearly_ , murmured a rather dry tone. And oh that was… not Zax at all, it was her _mother_.

...

Aeris learned right then and there that there was no situation on the Planet that made it less embarrassing when your _mother_ shows up while you’re _naked_ and with a _boy_.

_MAMA!_

Her mother's voice was rueful, disapproving, yet fond in equal parts… a soul and a mind that was dead and had come to terms, but still kept herself anchored so close to the living. _Just… just take care of yourself. Please, daughter of mine._

Aeris’s heart hurt to know her mother’s pain, sensing that Ifalna didn't feel right saying more \- no matter how much she might want to.

_\--What a busy place your head must be._ Zax's voice was thoughtful and assessing... and both mother and daughter were astounded to note that he could _hear_.

There had been no one, _no one_ in so long.

Ifalna's surprise was tempered with faint suspicion - unlike her daughter, there was no human in her veins, and while the Cetra had never directly opposed the demons, they had never been very closely aligned either. _The old pacts hold while one remains. You take care with my daughter, Fenrisson._

Zax's laugh was loud, and for a moment Aeris was filled with a bone-deep concern that this was the closest she would ever get to introducing a new boyfriend to her mother… and that boyfriend was going to spit in her face.

_I had no idea this would be so… interesting._ His voice was no different from that careless drawl of his, but there was an undertone of thoughtfulness that belied the sharp intelligence. _The Watchers in the earth yet sleep, Gaiasdatter. Let them lie. By tooth and claw, she is no prey of mine._

Ifalna’s presence pulled away, satisfied - though perhaps not wholly. _Witnessed._

Aeris was left reeling… one boy and his demon, and her mother had invoked the terms an old uneasy peace treaty - the violation of which had the potential to tear the Planet apart.

_Not a particularly tolerant race all things told now, hmmnn?_ Deadpan, his voice was loud, present, in her ear - said to her and her alone. _Such is ~love~_

How did he do that? She shivered at his voice, sex and a sly sense of humor mixed in the dark.

Zack’s easy laugh brought her back to herself, a little embarrassed and a little amused. He leaned over her to scoop up the condom off the floor, and his eyes on hers held an awareness she hadn’t expected - a cheerful acceptance that she wasn't as firmly tethered to the earth as he was, and that was okay too so long as here was where she still wanted to be.

And she did... oh, so much so. He’d unzipped his pants, and they hung open and low off his narrow hips, held on by a suggestion. She could already see the curved thickness of him, pressed tight against the waistband.

He rocked into her hand with bright eyes when she reached up to cup him, to run her fingers under the lip of the elastic and tug it down, freeing him at last. Zack hummed a pleased sound when she took him in her hand, the materia fire already starting to kindle again in his eyes. He was such a study of contrasts - his skin was whisper soft beneath her fingers, but the flesh underneath was hard and she could feel his pulse like a promise.

She squeezed him in her hand, as much for practicality as it was to give him pleasure. His breath came out from between his teeth, and the look of his face made her smile as she squeezed him, searching for... well, anything. Magic and demon blood mixed oddly sometimes in humans and she was eager, but she wasn't stupid.

He had a look in his eyes when she glanced back up at him, something you didn't see so often when a man has a woman naked underneath him - a wordless _is it okay?_ that spoke about more than just sex.

"Demon," she reminded him sweetly.

His smile was wide, sharp teeth glittering but not nearly as dangerous-looking in his mouth. His hands were deft as he helped her slip the condom on. And his eyes... oh, there was a look in there that she could drown in if she let herself.

"No extras," he promised. And she was glad he got it too.

His hand cupped the back of head as he leaned down to kiss her again, his other hand guiding himself in slowly-- _slowly!_

Her fingernails dug into the hard muscles of his shoulders as slow, shallow thrusts edged deeper, deeper. His earlier ministrations had left her keyed - still wanting, still wet, but _tight_... and he might not have spines or pointy bits hiding in that so-human body, but he also wasn't _small_.

He groaned against her lips, and his tongue found hers... It was the strangest sensation - to feel it wrap around hers in a loose loop, tighten and then tug in a warm, wet caress, over and over, in time with his hips. Strange… and good. Aeris found herself gasping underneath him, the pads of her fingers splayed and scrabbling at his shoulders still - but now pushing, flexing, and urgent.

_We’ve never done this before,_ Zax’s voice murmured in her mind. His voice was tight with pleasure, but there was a strange depth to it that made it a confession.

_Sex?_ She didn’t believe it for a second. Not with the way he did-- and those _fingers_ \--

Aeris cried out when Zack went down to his elbows above her, filling his hands with her breasts, squeezing and rolling and flicking her nipples between his fingertips without a single change of his rhythm.

_Tongues. Humans can be so nervous, you know…_

This close she could see the blue-white fire licking at the edges of his pupils threatening to swallow them, hotter than materia’s natural glow. The enormity of what Zax was telling her sizzled through her like a shock - Zack with his molten eyes and his naga’s tongue… how many people had he hidden them from?

Aeris knew a few things about playing human when you weren’t, not entirely. There were good days and there were bad days, but it was always just pretend.

_It’s their loss,_ she told Zax firmly, squeezing down on him as if in punctuation, wrapping her legs around Zack’s waist. Maybe he couldn’t let go completely without breaking her, but at least he wouldn’t have to _hide_.

A sharp chuckle and a tight hiss. _I always thought so._

Then… then she lost herself, as the light in his eyes called up a power of her own. He sped up again, driving in harder now, the force of him almost enough to hurt but still too good to stop. The fine hairs under her bangs stuck in damp strands against her forehead as she whipped it from side to side, and though she tried hard to maintain eye contact, it was impossible, she couldn’t-- _couldn’t--_

_\--I love you--_

Her eyes sprang open because that… that hadn’t been Zax. Or at least… that hadn’t been Zax alone. Zack’s entire face shone with words he didn’t say, and _meaning_ coalesced from a buzz of feelings, emotions, and swift-passing flashes of memory that heated her face and brought a smile to her lips.

She scraped her fingernails along the muscles of his back so that he hissed in pleasure, urging him to speed as her other hand locked behind his head and pulled him back down for another frantic kiss.

_I love you._

There was something growing in her - a brightness that was white and shining and spun like the cosmos as she lost herself in sensation. She had known something like this before… a faint glimpse of a world not quite at her fingertips, a faint haze over the earth she walked…

But it had never… she had never known this kind of _control_ before, even as she lost it. She could direct it. She knew where it led and how to go there, like following footprints in the sand.

They were driving towards that light, Zack and she, and she didn’t want it to stop. Even as her world spiraled down to that heady mounting heat at the pit of her belly, she pushed them through into that… that place.

It was that place inside where she would go to die - but it held no fear over her, since death held no fear over her.

He whispered something to her, but she couldn’t hear it - her ears filled with the sudden crescendo of sound, and her own sharp cries. She felt him though, the fingers that slipped between the two of them fluttering like a heartbeat, then the fireworks that scorched behind her eyelids as she came, screaming his name.

That was enough, the last piece of the puzzle which exploded that hot light in her center until it was all around them - an afternoon sun that showed no signs of setting, the baking smell of warm grass and a brisk breeze that tossed Zack’s hair out of his face as he looked up in wonder.

Aeris opened her mouth to explain but the words caught in her throat as her entire body shuddered, a forecast of more to come. Zack's attention came fully back to her, the amazement in his eyes undimmed, but a fierce joy lighting his features as he held her face between his hands. Achingly gentle, they framed the curve of her face as they shuddered with the effort not to bear down and crush the bones underneath.

She looked up at him through her lashes, hands scrabbling at his skin again, desperate for purchase as his eyes pinned her with that look - part helplessness, part deep, drowning need, and that sharp smile that overlaid everything that he did. He was going to--

_\--We_ , Zax corrected, his voice down to a guttural snarl, and she knew this time he wasn’t talking about just him and Zack.

It was true. The heat was building again - so soon after the last, it was almost like pain - her muscles shuddered beyond her control, her tongue was dry as sandpaper, and she knew her skin was damp and streaked with dust and pollen.

Zack still looked at her as though she were beautiful. His eyes slid skyward at the very last moment, his hands ripped away from her face and fisted in the dirt around her, and Aeris watched him until she couldn’t. Her body seized up again, and her spine arched sharply and she tipped over that edge with a cry muffled against her fist.

His head hung low over her as he went down to his elbows, and she could see the pulse pounding in his neck. He murmured her name gently, his lips brushing her cheek almost shyly now that they were… that it was over.

And at the very back of his throat, she could hear the soft thrumming vibration of his contentment.

Demon, she thought with an internal grin, and it was strange how fondly that thought arose. She craned her neck, fighting the glowing lethargy and closed her teeth gently at his throat again, ending how they’d begun.

Zax made a quiet _rrrrrr_ sound in her mind, and she could almost see him lying sprawled out like sated demon octopus, a dark splotch in that room of many windows. Above, Zack collapsed bonelessly down into the grass beside her, not much better off.

For a moment she lay there, staring up into the vast infinity of her sky. How long until she came here, for keeps? It was the first time - here, now, with Zack’s firm warmth curled up at her side, that she felt the first sense of real reluctance, of resistance, to staying. It didn’t feel… right… to be here alone.

She turned to face him, pillowing her head on her arm which brought her nose right up against his and his eyes so incredibly close.

With the laziest smile she’d ever seen (though it was as wide as if he were the proverbial cat who’d eaten a cageful of canaries) Zack did the same. Aeris had worried that maybe this would be the moment where things would get weird and real life would really start to creep in with a vengeance.

Once again, she underestimated him - he reached out to her first, curling his fingers behind her neck and stroking her skin with his fingers. His eyes were friendly - she wasn’t sure whether she could handle anything too googly or dismissive just yet - but unreadable as his demon’s.

“Where are we?” he asked, out of all the questions he possibly could, and it was that faint touch of hesitance that told her maybe this was as close to _shy_ as Zack ever got. _That_ brought a flutter back in her chest... and she wasn’t so sure she’d have minded googly eyes after all.

Still... it had been her secret for so long...

_Bad habits were made for breaking. Haven't you been alone with it for long enough?_

Was that Zax's brush of thought? Or... herself?

\--Either way, it was right, wasn't it? How could the truth hurt her now?

Aeris knew she likely looked as uncomfortable as she felt, but it was so hard to hide - especially when she wasn't hiding anything else. "It's my Promised Land," she said at last.

...It was strange how light she felt just saying the words out loud. Zack never even blinked, even when she tried - badly - to explain. From a glance it was clear that he didn't understand, not really… but he recognized the significance and the magnitude of what it had to mean.

He was a merc. If he didn't know now, he'd find out by sundown.

She reached out to touch him, to run her fingers over the hard muscles of his chest while it was still now, while she was still Aeris to him and not the Ancient. His scar was gone, she realized, the skin tan and whole like it had never been. Aside from his apparent inability to stand (yet), Zack looked better than when he’d started.

...She was a sweaty, exhausted mess and he hadn't even broken a sweat. That just wasn't fair.

As if in response, a brisk breeze sprang up, tugging playfully at her hair, making her shiver… and laughing at her for her worries.

“This mean we’ll have a long hike back?”

He had a funny expression on his face, like he was already trying to to plot highway robbery dressed in a cape made of daisies… and that the thought of doing it was actually kind of awesome.

_Children._ The sigh she heard was heartfelt, deadpan… and utterly false. _You hardly need me now… you can read his mind well enough already._

_It’s your mind too_ , she reminded him with a smile, shaking her head at both of them and shuffling her body forward so she could bury her face against his chest.

Zack wrapped his arms around her automatically, a cuddling _machine_ , and she… wanted to hold onto that for just a little while longer.

“I can give you as long as you want, doll,” he replied, and she could hear the smile, the _offer_ , without ever looking up. How many times had she circled the city and simply never crossed paths with this remarkable, wonderful man?

“Take me to your pack?” she asked in a tiny voice, muffled against the warmth of his skin, still so afraid to really _hope_. “I could use… I would like bodyguards like you.”

If she couldn’t hire them, maybe they could hire _her_. It seemed so easy to trust that everything would be all right when she was wrapped in his arms like she were something precious.

“Of course.”

_Oathsworn,_ murmured Zax. Aeris felt the sensation of someone else curled behind her, the thin ghostly whip of a tail tangling around their legs, those sharp claws mindfully gentle as an arm slipped around her waist to curl at her belly.

They'd be back soon. Back to that bar, that bathroom... and, if she knew anything about policemen, a heavily-armed force right outside the door.

She wasn't going to run, she decided right then and there, intuition winning out at least this once more. She wasn't going to slip out and take to the rooftops, she'd stand with Zack, like… like _pack_ , and see it through for… for as long as…

_For keeps_ , Zax supplied for her, voice velvety but firm.

For keeps.

Aeris smiled. She could get used to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooof that was long! This started such a tiny, harmless little bunny. And then... Zax poked his head up and informed me archly that he did, in fact, EXIST, and needed a part to play in this little drama. I'm still really quite glad he did. There's one more bit where Aeris gets to meet the rest of the pack and then... back to the Zackfic! *cracks knuckles* OT4 shenanigans for days!

**Author's Note:**

> Second half is already written and ready, I needed to chop it up into sections first because LJ has silly word/character limits, and second because this is huge and I need to go back and do all my italics and whatnot by hand. There has to be an easier way than this...


End file.
